THE EDITOR, Sir:

This letter derives from my concern, and should be the concern of all of us, with the lack of true, legal independence.

An extract of Beverley Manley's book published in The Gleaner shows Mrs Manley as saying that Norman Manley, as he then was, prayed for a modicum of independence and that is exactly what Jamaica got in 1962 - a small amount of independence and not independence which one, like me and certain others who think like me, would not have accepted.

Depriving the people

What is shocking to me and should be to this nation is that both political parties - PNP and JLP that have taken the baton from national heroes such as Nanny, Sam Sharpe, Paul Bogle, George William Gordon and Marcus Garvey, accepted not only a small amount of independence but continue to deprive the people of their full independence, although the modicum of independence is, in substance, by any critical analysis, an opportunity for true and full independence.

Let both the JLP and the PNP accelerate the process sine mora, that is, without delay, and stop ignoring the people's democracy, while perpetuating the ghost of British imperialism and not abandoning Britain, but experience principled relations with that great nation as with all others of our choosing.

I am, etc.,

OWEN S. CROSBIE

oss@cwjamaica.com

Mandeville